@Mom2aphysicsgeek Ha, yes. I found myself doing one of the Putnam example problems for amusement on a plane the other week, as I’d never come across the competition before and wondered if it was really that hard. Fortunately no one accused me of possessing weapons of math instruction.
I would take a different tack, OP. Regardless of what your son ends up doing academically, intellectually, professionally, he needs to be able to feed himself, keep a calendar (of sorts), interact with other human beings, etc.
I’d ignore college for now. I’d focus on life-skills training (which is hard for a kid with executive functioning issues). Start by having him make his own dentist appointments, eye doctor, etc. You can sit near him as he makes the phone calls, so you can show him where to put the appointment on the calendar, but let him handle the conversation. He is old enough to do his laundry- if he’s able to handle a video game, he can push the button on a washing machine. He is old enough to take responsibility for one family meal a week- not just boiling the water for the pasta, but the full on meal- making a grocery list, making sure there is cheese in the fridge, etc.
I work with a lot of very talented and some brilliant young folks, and their adolescent years seem to have been spent focused on their intellectual potential, with no regard to their ability to navigate the grown up world. Mom (usually mom) handled “life”. Dad (usually dad) did the long range planning. Kid got to exist in a twilight world of being brilliant and being driven around. Brilliant kids don’t need to learn how to read a bus schedule or how to return books to the local library on time.
I suspect that when your son’s EF challenges get under control (due to mastery, repetition, and the long slog of learning time management) you’ll see maturity start to kick in as well. I don’t know that you’ve posted enough here for us to help you figure out what his path is going to look like, but boys his age are typically disorganized. Your son may be able to handle a more conventional path than you think- plus he’ll know how to put dinner on the table!
Interesting, @blossom . Not our experience, but yes, I do meet families like the ones you describe.
Both my boys id’d as PG worked from age 13 onward. My husband never went to college (well, started but didn’t get too far), so he is the one that was always ok with our kids not going to college, and didn’t plan ahead other than to hope the boys would be self-supporting.
Yes, as the homeschool mom, I definitely was the facilitator, but maybe because of our more modest situation, my eldest in particular, was very independent/self-supporting from early on. Middle son has mental illness, so it’s been a different story altogether-not for lack of trying on his part, though.
PG kids come in all different flavors, intellectually, socially, and emotionally. It’s hard to generalize, but important to look at the “whole kid” in terms of development, not just intellectual development. For mine, I’m just as focused on emotional, social and executive development, which can be much more challenging. Time and maturation can work wonders.
My S and D were both .01% students, but we were not blessed with the financial resources to challenge them with special programming/courses. We were blessed with pups who were extremely organized, but who also understood early on that part of growing up and participating in society is a responsibility to help others. Community service is part of our family normal, and always has been.
We did our best to keep them busy with regular trips to the library, while they had piles of books around the house. I don’t think we did anything special with our pups, on the contrary we raised them to be as normal as any other family. I am terribly proud of them but they will tell you how often DH and I reminded them that they just because they were smarter than everyone else didn’t mean they should feel entitled to evade doing the dishes.
We certainly had our share of struggles with them, as every parent does. They understood that due to my medical issues, there were a number of times when they had to take on additional family responsibilities - and it sometimes wasn’t as easy as other times. Sometimes life deals you a crummy hand. We tried to teach them that its just a blessing to be in the game.
Exceptional students may find they don’t have to work as hard at some areas but it is rare to find a student who excels in all areas without wanting to work at anything. While time management is a life skill that can be learned, the .01% top students often find that they simply don’t require as much time to master topics as other students. Students who can read / consume / master 1000 pages in 3 hours, and then knock out an insightful 15-20 page paper in an hour, do have it easier than students who need well over twice the time to accomplish the same thing.
I always figured there was nothing that I nor DH did that pushed them to be the top students - it was simply part of who they are. If we had more advantages, sure, it would have been nice to provide them with different opportunities. But the goal during their formative years all the way through college is to help raise them to become happy, self-sufficient, caring people.
One great thing about AoPS books are that they are only around $50 which includes a fully worked out solutions manual. Kids don’t need to pay for the courses. They can work through the books independently. Their forums are great places for asking questions if the don’t understand something. Their volumes 1 and 2 are full of challenge math type questions.
Yes, and generally AoPS books are excellent. My S taught himself calculus with them, because he needed it for some of his research, but didn’t have the time or need for the course.